The King's Golden Beard
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Who's to blame when a vain, heedless king meets his comeuppance? He is, of course! Fans of Tomi Ungerer's mischievous humor and Jon Agee's sly morality tales will be delighted by this hilarious read-aloud about a long, long beard and its short-sighted royal owner, by a popular Belgian illustrator, designer, and animation whiz.
The lush, golden royal beard is a wondrous thing - especially to the king himself. He spends his days admiring and grooming it, and passes laws making it a crime punishable by death for anyone else's face to sport even a single hair. As the people of the kingdom nervously shave daily, the royal beard grows and grows until it appears at the palace's back gate. What happens next will have readers laughing along -- and cheering for the astronomers who, unlike the tyrannical king, know that the earth is round.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This clever, biting little fable looks on as a vain ruler passes a series of laws to protect "his kingly self and his beautiful beard." Readers can't see the king; luxuriant, silvery-blond hair covers his body, a creepy red-lipped smile visible through the thicket. Soldiers with stick arms and legs rake the beard and carry it reverently. The king proclaims that ordinary subjects are not permitted beards rule breakers will be "cut into a thousand pieces with a pinchy pair of nail scissors!" In dark, stylish before-and-after spreads, animate and inanimate subjects show the law's consequences: a broom loses its bristles, a pirate turns out to be naked behind a once-ample blue beard, and a cactus loses its spines. At last, the monarch's beard grows all the way around the world and returns to annoy the kingly presence, with terrible consequences (or just deserts, depending upon the reader's take). Verplancke skewers narcissism and willful ignorance, too, as the ruler's belief that the Earth is flat interferes with his understanding that the invading beard might, in fact, be his own. Ages 4 8.
